


abolisson

by ballantine



Series: noble consuls of rome [1]
Category: Ancient History RPF, Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Humor, Liberator!Antony, Loyalty, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23995600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/ballantine
Summary: Later generations might say he had no loyalty – a minor enough flaw for a Roman – but it would be a lie. It was only that he'd given his to Brutus before he ever met Caesar.
Relationships: Mark Antony/Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger
Series: noble consuls of rome [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730350
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	abolisson

**Author's Note:**

> This started out pretty firmly an HBO Rome fic, but then the characters started to blur a bit with their ancient counterparts, or my version of them anyway.
> 
> Title is taken from the song by Ennio Morricone, which I listened to like ten times while writing this over the weekend. 
> 
> If you're reading this during the plague, hope you're staying safe! <3

_Brutus still cherished the idea that once Caesar was out of the way, Antony's generous nature, ambition, and love of glory would respond to the noble example set by the conspirators, and that he would join them in helping their country to achieve her liberty.  
_ -Plutarch

When Antony first joined Caesar at his winter quarters in Gaul, he was both eager to prove himself and proud of what he'd already proven. At the age of twenty-eight, he successfully led cavalry through Typhon's breathing-hole and restored the Egyptian king Ptolemy to his realm, and at twenty-nine he successfully avoided official sanction for the deed. He had high expectations for his thirties.

Winter in Gaul was an endurance game. While waiting for the war season to recommence, one had to put up with all manner of irritations. Shit weather, shit food. Sulky whores and bored-stupid soldiers. Worst were his fellow officers, many of whom had clearly never had occasion to rough it for longer than a fortnight. A few complained bitterly and at length through the long days. Antony was used to being a pauper patrician, always surrounded by men who bore equal breeding but better circumstances than he. He could look upon his peers with no small amount of good humor – so long as they paid for the drinks.

He was in the camp a month before he properly met the man.

Antony was taking exercises in the early morning. He was on verge of being hungover, which was when he found it best to train; the impending torment lent a certain viciousness to his movements that left his sparring partners suitably wary. His unlucky partner of that morning was Pilius, a second son of a wealthy equestrian family.

Pilius kept backing up over the frozen dirt, his feet a barely-controlled shuffle. He gritted his teeth, eyes flicking around the sleepy training ground as if to check for observers of this humiliation. He wanted to snap at Antony, that much was clear, but what would he say? Stop hitting so hard?

Antony grinned at him and continued to cheerfully hack away at his defenses. Their harsh breathing formed a fog between them in the cold air. He welcomed the chill on his skin, which was fevered from drink.

He had chased the man to the edge of the manure pit adjoining the stables when a new blade inserted itself in their bout. Antony received a bruising knock to the ribs with the flat of the blade. It was more surprise than pain that caused him to stumble back, breaking the engagement. Pilius straightened, his own sword lowering. Although it was clear he wanted to, he did not make a run for it – one did not flee the presence of one's general, even if the general was looking at someone else.

“So you can attack, that much is clear,” said Caesar, stepping forward to study Antony with those sharp, dark eyes. “But your defense is a shambles. How did you fare so well in Pelusium with your guard lowered?”

Antony's breath had left his chest at the sight of him, and now he regained it only to expel it again in a slight laugh. “I suppose I relied on the brothers to my left and to my right,” he said, not without some irony. Self-protection was not in his nature. It was but one of many ways he was insufficiently Roman.

Eyebrows gracefully arched, Caesar said, “A touching sentiment, but strategically unwise. I can't have one of my lieutenants exposing himself so recklessly – come,” he commanded abruptly, nodding to the blade in Antony's hand. “Attack me, and this time see if you can keep your guard up while you do it.”

Pilius and the manure pits and everything else melted away. The only thing Antony saw was Caesar. Under the general's watchful eyes, he resumed the first position. He hesitated only a moment before swinging his blade. It was met with an effortless deflection, and the ringing of the metal sounded clear and pure, and cut over the early morning training grounds like the only sound in an otherwise silent Gaul.

A decade later, Antony had his guard dutifully up when he slew Caesar on the floor of the Senate. But Caesar did not have a block prepared; although Antony had made his attack from the front, the great man somehow hadn't seen him coming.  
  


* * *

  
There were no great shouts of victory or jubilation. The Senate was quite quiet, except for the whispering cloth of those Senators still fleeing the scene.

“I thought we were all supposed to do it,” said someone behind Antony, a little sulky. The words were caught and carried upward by architecture intended to amplify grand speeches.

“You want to have a go at his corpse?” said another, trying for a joke. “Here, I'll hold it still for you, maybe then your aim will—”

“Touch his body and you'll be next,” said Antony quietly.

The silence that resumed had a different quality than the one that came before it. It was charged and wary. He felt rather than saw the slight ripple that went through the conspirators, the way they shifted and clutched their little daggers anew. He might have to fight his way out of here yet. It was a distant concern.

Caesar had tried to cover his face.

Antony was nothing if not efficient; the man had only seconds to register the wound as he fell to the floor. He'd spent them trying to cover his face.

Antony stared down at him. He has killed – well, _a lot_ should just about cover it. A lot of men. Like all mortals, he was no stranger to death. But he always wondered where they go. Caesar had worn a look of shock and the beginnings of horror and anger, but none of that remained on his face now. The flesh was vacant, the muscles left in a slackened echo of their owner's last command.

Where did Caesar go now, he wondered.

Movement from the right. The muscles in his forearm flexed and stilled again as Brutus stepped forward. He wasn't even holding his dagger. He bent over Caesar's body, and for an absurd moment Antony thought he would check for a pulse. But no: he was lifting the toga and drawing it up over his face.

The cloth was barely stained. Antony hadn't wanted him to die by the hands of these mewling soft-handed men, who undoubtedly would've made a mess with their panicked flailing. So he'd taken sole ownership of the deed, and tried in his heart to call it a favor to his former general.

When Brutus straightened, he met Antony's eyes; tears swam, unashamed, in his own. His face was pale but composed. He managed to make his emotionalism look somehow noble – a trick Antony, with his own easy rages and grief, had never quite managed.

Cassius stepped forward from his left, so the three of them made a neat isosceles triangle over the body. He glanced down at it only for a second – an overseer's nonchalant and imperious review – before looking around at the rest of the conspirators. A smile grew, though Antony thought as it passed over him, there was a flash of displeasure in it.

“Thus ever, for tyrants,” Cassius said firmly.

The others echoed the sentiment, and the acoustics of the room performed their magic and made the uncertain murmurs sound like consensus. They repeated it again, this time stronger. Glee and relief grew in their voices; glee that the deed had been done, and done quickly. Relief they had not been the ones to do it, after all.

In the growing clamor of mutual congratulations, Brutus didn't speak. And he didn't look away from Antony.

Antony's throat ached. He imagined he could already taste the smoke of the funeral pyre.  
  


* * *

  
“You shall be remembered forever, now,” said Brutus, hours later. He'd had four cups of unwatered wine and was holding a fifth. “Marcus Antonius, who slew the tyrant Caesar and saved Rome.”

He paused, eyes narrowly considering the wall like he might see through it to the graffiti outside, which would be worked anew soon enough. Fewer taunts of Brutus not living up to his ancestor. What they would have to say about Mark Antony had yet to be decided. The streets of Rome were holding still, waiting to see who would come out on top or whether the Republic would tear itself apart again.

Antony had somehow ended up accompanying Brutus back to his house. He would no longer be welcome in Atia's house, he knew. And aside from an empty, trashed villa that once belonged to Pompey, he did not possess a house of his own to retreat to. Caesar had once remarked he'd never known someone so content to be homeless. Antony was living with him at the time.

Brutus said, “Or there's another way it goes: your name becomes synonymous with betrayal. Years from now, soldiers might dub any turncoat in their midst a Mark Antony.”

“You get so bitchy when you drink,” muttered Antony, and relieved him of his wine. He reclined on the opposite couch, though he did not feel much like resting. He was keyed up and spoiling for a fight – belated reaction to the bloodshed. He was not hurt and his body didn't understand why. It thought it must be coming. Any second now.

“What now?” he asked, looking to distract himself.

Brutus had gone to fetch himself another cup. He paused and turned, the amphora held aloft. “What now,” he said, tone questioning.

“Yes,” said Antony impatiently. He motioned with his own cup, but it wasn't a toast. “Caesar is dead,” he said, and it was miraculous that he could say such an absurd statement without laughing, but there was no laughter because it was true, “And now...”

“And now Rome is saved. The Republic is restored.” Brutus finished pouring his wine and seated himself once more. He lifted his cup to drink and paused, caught by Antony's dead-eyed stare. “What?”

“I meant, what is the plan. For restoring the Republic, or whatever.” He spoke calmly, sure that this wasn't as big of a cock-up as part of him suspected.

Except Brutus was looking at him quizzically. Antony should have gotten to him before he started drinking, except it went against his nature to deny any man his alcohol.

“What did Cassius say,” he asked instead, grasping.

“You heard him.” Brutus affected Cassius's voice, “ _Thus ever, for tyrants_. As far victory slogans go, that was – fine, I suppose. I think I could've done better. Given the time, I know I could've done better. But I forgot.”

Antony had stopped listening, caught instead in a cold grip of something like nausea. He took a large mouthful of wine to quell it. “You forgot?” he prompted vaguely.

“I forgot to think of something to say,” said Brutus, “I mean, I'm not a monster. Man was like a father to me, it's not like I was going to sit around penning out rough drafts of quippy lines to say over his cooling corpse—oh gods,” he gasped, curling over suddenly. He set his cup down roughly, the shaking in his hand bad enough to spill some of the wine as he did it. “I can't believe we did it. He's dead. We killed him.”

“I killed him,” said Antony.

“What?” Brutus lifted his head and stared at him with an expression of confused anguish.

“ _I_ killed him,” he repeated. He leaned forward, lifting off the couch until their faces were inches apart. “You said it was necessary, it had to be done. I believed you. And now I want to know what your plan is for ensuring the country doesn't fall to bickering, bloody pieces. It doesn't sound like you have one. I beg you to tell me I've misunderstood.”

Brutus's soft, pink mouth twisted. “But Rome—”

“If you say Rome is saved one more time,” said Antony, very evenly, “I am going to hit you.”

“I didn't hear you kicking up a fuss about a plan when you agreed to join us,” snapped Brutus. He sat up, grief subsiding for the moment.

“I'm not a politician, I'm a soldier. I don't do any planning unless I know it's my job.”

“I don't understand the problem,” said Brutus. “Without Caesar sitting dictator, the Senate can resume its usual functions. What am I missing?”

“The Senate signed away its power to Caesar. It doesn't get it back like a fucking stylus it lent him.”

The hardest part of conquering Gaul had been covering the territories they'd already won; Caesar would knock out one chieftain and it seemed two more always appeared at the edges, ready to fill the power void.

Brutus began to look very tired. Any weight that might have lifted from his shoulders the moment Caesar fell in the Senate came thundering back down. It might crush him. But slowly he straightened. He swung his legs off the couch and put his feet on the ground.

“I suppose we need to gather the others and discuss this,” Brutus said. “Cassius—”

“I don't trust Cassius.”

Surprise wiped his face clean. Brutus looked almost affronted. “Why not?”

Antony thought about Cassius and how the man clearly had given plenty of thought about what to say over Caesar's body. He thought about the way he sat close to Brutus on the night they all met to discuss the plan for the assassination, how he had laid an encouraging hand on his shoulder and talked of the great destiny of his bloodline and how Brutus had shrank from the words but tried to make it look like acceptance.

This is the problem with friends from one's school days, Antony thought. No matter the stupid trouble they got themselves into, you always felt obligated to help.

“He's a politician. I don't trust politicians.”

“Caesar was a politician.”

Antony shrugged. “Who do you think told me not to trust them?”

Brutus thought about that. “I'm a politician.”

This forced a bark of laughter from him. Brutus flinched at the harsh sound.

“You're not a politician, Brutus,” he said.

“Oh? And what am I then?” said Brutus. It should've been a retort, but it was too wan. The fight was gone from his voice, and he only sounded like he was genuinely asking. Pleading, even.

“Something much worse,” said Antony. “An idealist.”  
  


* * *

  
Later generations might say he had no loyalty – a minor enough flaw for a Roman – but it would be a lie. It was only that he'd given his to Brutus before he ever met Caesar.

It wasn't something he chose. If it were a matter of calculation, something to be weighed before deciding, it wouldn't even have been a contest. After all, Caesar was a great man: a genius at war and governing. As far as Antony could tell, he was the only miserable bastard in all of Italy who could make Rome work.

And Brutus? What was Brutus? An awkward man who had never quite grown into his gawky frame, who was by turns too serious with his philosophy and too light with his art. If he was less devout, he might've been an Epicurean and washed his hands of politics altogether. But that was not allowed; Servilia would never permit a son of her bloodline to play poet while the city was ripe for the taking. Antony, who no one had ever expected anything of, was almost fascinated with the care she took tending Brutus's career.

They'd met in Greece when they were young men and became friends almost by accident. Both of them were free there in a way they could never be back in Rome; Antony of his reputation and debts and Brutus of the burden of expectations. They studied rhetoric on the same stoa. They attended the same plays and symposiums. They used the same gymnasium – Antony delighting in the honest exertion of Grecian sport and Brutus in their simple, austere baths.

It was the first time in his life Antony had experienced uncomplicated happiness. It turned out such a memory held a powerful sway over one's decisions: one stronger than instinct or better judgment.  
  


* * *

  
The meeting was held, naturally, at Brutus's house. Antony was darkly amused by his obvious loathing at having his home turned into a place of political conspiracy. Sometimes he thought if the man held his tongue any tighter, he'd choke on it.

Brutus sat uneasily in a chair, looking clammy with his burgeoning hangover. Antony paced behind him as the others slowly trickled into the room. Servilia stationed herself standing a little to the left of Brutus, as if she might fool anyone into thinking she was a harmless dowager playing hostess.

Cassius, glancing watchfully at Antony, took the chair to Brutus's right. He bent in and whispered something in his ear. Brutus shook his head. Antony soothed himself with idle thoughts of wringing Cassius's scrawny neck. He was thus in an ideal mood when Cicero appeared in the doorway.

“Friend Cicero,” he hailed from across the room. Many people have hated Antony, but none had ever done so poor a job at concealing it as Cicero. It was a balm, watching the worm twitch. “Have you come to offer congratulations and gratitude to your liberators?”

The august senator drifted into the room, taking a cup of wine from a tray. “When my country is in peril, I am helpless to ignore its call.”

“You think the country is in peril?” said Brutus. He sounded credibly amused. You would never know he'd been throwing up wine an hour ago. “We have secured the city. Antony has three thousand men at the ready, and we've received word of support from all the important factions.”

“There is potential for peril at every crossroads.”

Servilia said, “The greater danger is behind us. The tyrant is dead.”

“The deed is done.” Cicero smiled thinly. “As for liberators – well, that remains to be seen. I come to speak on behalf of the voices in the Senate who were not fortunate enough to be included in your plans.”

There was a smile in Brutus's voice as he replied, “Forgive us, Cicero. We thought you would prefer not to know.”

“I thought as much. A pity – if I _had_ known, I might have counseled you to make,” his eyes drifted up from Brutus and lingered on Antony, “different choices.”

Antony, bracing his hands on the back of Brutus's chair, smiled and winked at him.

Cicero took a seat in the chair opposite. He held his wine like a prop in a play. “You will have heard Calpurnia had Caesar's will opened and read?”

“Caesar died a tyrant,” said Cassius dismissively. “His will is null and void.”

At the mention of the will, Antony suffered a creeping cold shock. He had forgotten the will. Caesar had been a very rich man. If he'd named him in his will, it would be – he didn't know how he would—

“He left everything to his nephew,” said Cicero airily, malice sparking. “Named him his son, even. Do you know the boy? Gaius Octavius. A bright lad, very sharp. As he is yet young, I persuaded him to let me relay his concerns. I am here strictly as an impartial arbiter, you see.”

“You speak for so many, Cicero,” said Antony, “I wonder if you ever get confused about whose tongue is in your mouth.”

“I thank you for your concern, Antony, but unlike you with your many suitors, I have never had trouble differentiating.”

“Friends,” said Brutus, forestalling further words. “I believe we have more pressing matters to discuss. Cassius is correct, of course, that Caesar's will is intestate. Please offer my apologies to the boy – bad luck...”

“Yes, of course,” said Cicero. “Well, then, the next order of business, I believe, is the elections.”

“Elections?” said several people at once.

And this is why you don't kill a dictator without a fucking plan, thought Antony.  
  


* * *

  
After almost two hours of discussion, the liberators were still in disagreement. Cassius wanted to blink; he wanted to bargain for amnesty and keep his seat as proconsul. Brutus was similarly conflicted; on any given day Antony knew he felt like an impostor, and doubtless some voice in his head told him he'd never be reelected praetor if he gave it up now. Cassius had so convincingly lashed their fates together, Brutus was blind to the regard others held for him.

Antony supposed it was easy to ask for amnesty for an act someone else committed. The very word made him want to cut out Cicero's liver. Caesar was a tyrant; Antony was a murderer. These both were true. But to throw up hands and cry _no foul_ , to act as if the man had been merely struck by lightning?

He just killed the greatest man he'd ever known. He'd be damned if they pardoned him for it.

“Listen,” said Antony.

Everyone slowly stopped moving. Seconds passed and they appeared nonplussed by what they heard – or rather, what they didn't.

“Why so quiet?” he asked Cicero. “A beloved dictator is dead. Surely the people should be upset. Where is the angry mob at our door? Where is the mournful wailing?”

“They are afraid,” he said. “But the people loved Caesar. Surely it hasn't escaped your notice that they aren't cheering madly for their newfound liberty either.”

“The people will cheer when I damn well tell them to,” snarled Antony.

Silence in the room. Brutus, having twisted around in his seat, stared up at him as if struck. Servilia raised her chin coolly. Antony tried smiling – and then quickly stopped, as Brutus winced and Cassius noticeably paled. He said, moderating his tone, “They are merely waiting to be told what they are cheering.”

Cicero looked ill.

But then, support came from a surprising corner:

“What fear have we for elections?” said Servilia. She looked around the room, meeting every man's eye. “Is this not what we wanted? We have restored the Senate, and the Senate's business is elections. Properly led, I don't believe for an instant they won't see fit to confirm you all in your current positions – or even advance you to new heights, as you so richly deserve.” Her eyes landed on her son and stayed there.

It felt strange to be on the same side as her for once – she who so vocally disapproved of his friendship with Brutus. Antony wasted no time and pushed on. “What remains of the Caesarians who did not come over with me are scattered. They have no leader – the boy Octavius has barely started growing hair above his cock.”

Brutus said, slowly, “And with Caesar's wealth tied up by the courts, we do not have to concern ourselves with a competitor in bribes.”

They agreed to hold an election. The augurs would take the auspices and offer up a date with favorable omens.

Cicero was displeased but loathe to show it. After visibly fighting with himself, he said at last, “The family requested that I ask after a funeral?”

“What of it?” said Servilia. If she was cool before, her voice would turn one's extremities blue now. “Tyrants don't get public funerals.”  
  


* * *

  
“Do you blame me?” asked Brutus, looming out of the darkness at his bedside late one night, a candle in hand. “Do you wish you had not done it?”

Antony let out a breath and, at the same time, let go of the blade beneath his pillow. He hung his head and shook it. “Jupiter's stone,” he muttered into his hands.

Brutus paused in his awkward clamber over Antony's body and stared down. “Is that a _knife_? Why are you sleeping with a knife in my house?”

“I sleep with a knife everywhere—get off,” he said sharply, shoving him to move along. The movement nearly knocked the candle from his hands. What a way to go that would be for the tyrant killer: burned alive in a compromising position in bed with a praetor.

Brutus possessed at least four elbows, and he managed to dig each of them into the soft parts of Antony's flesh before he was finally sitting cross-legged like a boy on the other side of the bed. Antony scrubbed a hand over his hair and sighed. He sat up and ignored the way Brutus's eyes fell to look at his bare chest. He was very practiced at ignoring this.

“Well?” Brutus pressed. “Do you blame me?”

“Why are you whispering? Are you worried your mother is at the doorway, listening in?”

“Eleni might be.”

“You should ease up on the wine,” Antony advised. “Depressives make such terrible bores when they drink, it brings shame to the whole occupation.”

“Answer the question.”

He studied him. For someone so prone to self-doubt, Brutus possessed a face ill-suited to the emotion. He always looked like he was having digestive issues. Hardly impressive.

“Yes,” he said. Brutus sucked in a sharp breath. “This is all your fault. And when we lose the election and Cicero has us declared enemies of the state, that will be your fault as well.”

“Don't jest, Antony—”

“Jest, me? I'd never. Not about this.”

He scowled. “You'll be cracking jokes at your execution.”

“Yes, probably,” he said, quite seriously. It was the most likely end for him; Romans didn't really _do_ retirement, never mind good old Cincinnatus. He looked at the lines on either side of Brutus's mouth; they looked deeper than ever. Feeling very tired, he stretched out on his back, folding his hands behind his head. He put his gaze anywhere but Brutus and said quietly:

“He started talking about himself like a god.”

Brutus picked at the coverlet. “I know.”

He narrowed his eyes at the ceiling. “I used to be able to tell when he was joking, but at some point it became harder. It started to feel—” he cut himself off, because talking like this aloud wasn't something he did, even with Brutus. It was easier if everyone thought he was brash and impudent and utterly profane. Letting people know he was brash and impudent and devout would just leave him open for attacks of a different sort. This was a type of self-protection no one had to teach him.

“Sacrilegious,” finished Brutus.

He chewed his cheek. “Yes.”

A sharp laugh across the bed drew his eyes; Brutus was shaking his head. He set the candle down on the bedside table, and the light flickered over his wretched gash of a smile.

“Fuck's wrong with you?” Antony demanded.

“I can't do anything right,” he said. “Don't you see? Even in this, Antony, even in this I show myself to be unworthy.”

He covered his eyes and tore at his hair. Antony reached up and got a grip on his wrists, forced them down. Tears again.

He wrinkled his nose. “What twaddle, now?”

Brutus's eyes could've burned holes in the mattress with the force of his glare. “I plotted and planned, and I drew you into it and then stood back as you killed him for me – and Antony, I didn't even have a good reason for it. Any of it.” A flush slowly suffused his face. Sweat shined on his forehead. “You're lying there thinking about the _gods_ and I – I did it because it seemed like. The thing to do,” he finished helplessly.

“The thing to do,” repeated Antony. Brutus nodded miserably. He thought about this very carefully for a few seconds and then said, calmly, “Brutus, I am going to kill you.”

He lunged up out of the sheets and Brutus scrambled back with an undignified yelp.

“Why are you _naked_?” he cried.

“I was sleeping, or trying to, before you came skulking in here like a child after a nightmare, snivelling and whining—”

“You cretin.” Brutus rolled off the other side of the mattress with far more grace than he'd shown getting on it. He stood at the end of the bed with his hands on his hips and looked down his nose at Antony. “You cannot insult and kill me in my own house.”

“I killed Caesar on the floor of his own Senate,” said Antony. It was like a nightmare: he kept saying he killed Caesar, and no one burst into the room to say it wasn't true and call him a filthy lying whore. “I think I can kill you wherever I damn well please.”

“This was a mistake,” said Brutus, heading for the door. He no longer looked torn apart by grief, but was alight with outrage. “I shouldn't have enlisted your help. We've never been able to work together. I don't know why I thought that might change just because we are in our forties now.”

“I'm only thirty-nine,” Antony said to his back, because it was always important to remind him that Brutus was the older one. “And this can be over any time. Bribe the right people, whisper in the right ears.... Brutus, this can all be over.”  
  


* * *

  
Cicero surveyed the city atop a tall hill.

It was the best mount for taking the auspices, though a couple of the other augurs expressed a preference for one slightly to the south. Both Antony and Cicero were adamant that the current one be used; it might have been the only thing in their lives they ever agreed on.

“Ah, look – there,” said Cicero, pointing at a wheeling bird. “Five days is favorable.”

The other augurs murmured gentle words of equivocating agreement.

Antony, reclined back on his elbows beneath an awning, lifted his head and squinted. He grunted, unimpressed. “A kestrel? You want to rest the fate of the Republic on the movements of a kestrel? Come, Cicero, you can do better than that.”

The other augurs murmured gentle words of equivocating agreement. Cicero's mouth thinned.

“Do you think you can put the election off forever, Antony? You're not even _looking_ ,” he hissed.

“You've always confused augurs with bird watchers. It's not about looking,” he said, smothering a yawn behind his palm. “It's about waiting. Taking the auspices requires patience and a receptive spirit.”

“Lord knows you excel at that. Have you ever denied a single invitation?”

“Denied more than you've received.” he said, because he couldn't seem to help himself.

“I don't know how you keep managing to turn the heads of better men,” said Cicero, turning his back fully upon the vista he was supposed to be inspecting for omens. “How many fine, dutiful citizens will I have to watch you manipulate and drag down to your depths? First Curio and now Brutus? That he saw fit to include you in his plans, I'll never understand—”

He said, affecting boredom to disguise his anger at the mention of his late friend Curio, “It must really burn you up, all these younger men you keep trying to mentor who end up liking me better.”

Antony greatly disliked living in a world where Caesar had to die but Cicero was allowed to live. He didn't hide this thought from his face as he looked at his fellow augur, who returned the look with great vehemence.

“Ahem.” Another spoke up – one of the stooped, gray men who'd been an augur when Antony was born, and would likely still be one when he died. He pointed a gnarled, liver-spotted finger out to the west. Antony and Cicero followed the direction of his gaze.

A large flock of starlings banked and rose, sketching stark spirals against the blue cloudless sky.

“Ah!” Cicero actually clapped, such was his delight. “Five days, it is.”

Antony withdrew back under the shade of the awning and smiled out at the college of augurs. With teeth. “Splendid.”  
  


* * *

  
All his life he'd been labeled a fool, so Antony thought nothing of bowing to his public image and attempting to pay his respects to the deceased.

He didn't even get close enough for Calpurnia to spit on; guards in front of the house tightened and locked rank at the first gate. The funereal chanting within was audible on the street.

He was but one of hundreds gathered informally outside the house. The mood of the crowd was muted and somber. Some of these people, he knew, would worship Caesar for the rest of their lives.

 _I would've given him a funeral oration befitting a king_ , he wanted to shout at the door. _It would've torn the heart of all who heard it, like my own heart is torn. This city would have burned with the grief and rage his death should've inspired._

But thrice had Antony offered a Caesar a crown, and thrice had he denied it. Whatever Caesar was, or would've become, a king was not his destiny.

The gate remained closed, and the guards stone-faced and immovable. After a while, Antony drew his dark hood lower over his face and slipped away like a thief through the crowd.  
  


* * *

  
They were elected co-consuls.

“But,” said Brutus at his side, “I thought we were running for our previous seats?”

People kept coming up to Brutus to shake his hand and pound him on the back. His smile twitched out automatically at the appearance of every new well-wisher. With the glut and pace of the crowd, he was beginning to look mentally disturbed. His eyes searched frantically for an escape that would not be forthcoming.

Antony thought of Servilia's quiet satisfaction over breakfast that morning and said nothing. He looked at the crowd of Senators with a sort of deathly calm, picturing the days that lay ahead. In every robe a dagger; in every session a new chance that it might be used against him.

He was consul before, but it felt different this time. This time there was no Caesar. No one with Caesar's vision or Caesar's energy. There was just he and Brutus.

Over the throng of Brutus's admirers, Antony noticed Cassius and Quintus sliding up to Cicero's side. The three heads bent together, expressions serious.

“So,” he said. “We have a year.”

“A year,” confirmed Brutus. The stupid bugger looked at him, stricken. Antony foresaw another late night tear-filled apology in his near future. He suppressed a sigh.

They had a killed a man neither of them wanted dead, and as a result they were elected to seats neither wanted to hold. Antony had a lifetime of fuck ups under his belt, but this one was perhaps the most glorious yet.

“Well, you asked for it,” he said to Brutus with a bitter smile, “Rome is saved.”

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of the lines Antony and Cicero exchange while debating what to do re: declaring Caesar a tyrant were adapted from the show, with a little spin. If you've seen the show, they are pretty obvious, but I wanted to be careful and mention it.
> 
> The Plutarch quote in the beginning is from a translation by Ian Scott-Kilvert.


End file.
